The Dragon Reborn
by JuniperGentle
Summary: One was imprisoned. One was free. It seemed pretty obvious who needed help. But some prisons are in the mind, and before it was all over there would be casualties on both sides. Apart, they were extraordinary. Together, they would be unstoppable. The world had been waiting for them. In-depth backstory for the Dragon Emperor.
1. Prologue: Lost in Time

**Prologue: Lost in Time**

So long.

So dark.

So _cold._

It was always cold. Crystal cold.

Sleeping on a bed of ice was nothing compared to this – and he wasn't even asleep. They just thought he was.

That was their first mistake.

They had caught him, bound him, captured him and hidden him away from the world. Locked away in his own private cell, a room just big enough for him to exercise and that was it; they never forgot he was there, never forgot his threat. He guessed that was nice of them. He never forgot they were there either. He never forgot who had _betrayed _him.

That was their second mistake.

For though he was hidden from the world, the world was not hidden from him. And so he was able to set the simplest of plans in motion. Simple was always best.

Now all he needed was someone to help him.


	2. Chapter 1

_This is a story. _

_Actually, this is an epic, sort of. I've been waiting to write this for a long time, and I'm going to enjoy myself writing it so that it's the best story I am capable of. That means there may be days when I upload several chapters at once, and there may be big gaps. (You are allowed to chase me up if the gaps are getting too big!)_

_To several of you, I have hinted at a massive story that has been eating away at me for almost a year and a half now, and – finally – this is it._

_It came out of a desire to delve into the story behind one of the most mysterious creatures in the whole of the Beyblade series, original or Metal – Ryuga, Dragon Emperor and master of L-Drago. Why does he want power? Why does he insist on walking alone even when others try to follow him? When did he meet Doji, or Ziggurat, and what drew him to their plans? What is his history with L-Drago, and why was he the only one who has ever – who **could** ever – control the ferocity of the Forbidden Bey?_

_To that extent, I give you the true opening chapter of The Dragon Reborn. And, because I'm being my usual self about anniversaries, this chapter is posted to celebrate the third birthday I have had under this name. _

___Please enjoy. _

* * *

_**Fun Fact #1: **If someone tells you that you'll "grow out of" your fandom, it's usually a lie. I'm 21 today. I haven't grown out of Beyblade yet. _

_**Fun Fact #2:** That still doesn't mean I own it._

* * *

**Chapter 1**

"Hey! You! What are you doing in the Lord's garden... oh, I'm sorry, young master. I didn't recognise you."

The gardener took a step back as the second son of his employer looked up slowly. Of all of the Master's sons, it was this one who had eyes most similar to his father, bright gold with the strangely reptilian slits for pupils. There was a stillness to him that neither of his brothers had, a frightening stillness that seemed unnatural in such a young one.

"Your vigilance is commendable, but unnecessary." The boy's voice was as cold as his eyes. Recognising the dismissal, the gardener took another step back, inclining his head automatically, but the other was no longer paying any attention whatsoever, absorbed in his study of... whatever it was he was looking at with those strange eyes. For a moment, the gardener hesitated, hoping fruitlessly for another word or some kind of hint as to what the boy was thinking, but the slightest tensing of the shoulders told him that he was not welcome, so he bowed his way out of the garden.

Silence and stillness descended.

Breathe in for the count of six, out for five.

In for two, out for three.

Always under ten. He'd once thought that twenty was a good number to breathe out for after an inwards breath of three, but had quickly stopped that when he started coughing. After that, he'd started doing it this way.

In for seven. Out for seven.

The disturbance of the gardener had made him lose count of which line he was on. Never mind. He was nearly finished anyway.

Close your eyes. Forget everything. All that exists is what you can hear. Forget what you cannot hear. They do not exist. Forget them. Push it down. Push it back. _Forget._

One... no, two birds. Probably blackbirds from the sound of it. Grass that rustled in the soft breeze. The click of the lock on the garden gate as it swung back and forth.

No running footsteps. No shouts or laughter. Just peace, and quiet... and the sound of a window latch opening far above his head.

"Ryuga! Ryuga, come inside! Your tutor's here!"

The golden eyes opened slowly, looking at the stone wall in front of him, as blank as his mind. One last breath in and out, three and three, and then just as slowly to stand. All feelings locked away inside him, keeping them safe, keeping _him_ safe. They did not exist.

For any other twelve-year-old, this would have seemed a very strange routine, with the only possible outcome being a visit to the psychiatrist. But Ryuga had always been rather different to the others, and everyone knew it, so they ignored it. Most of them also ignored him, which he was perfectly happy with. If only the ones who _didn't_ ignore him could be dealt with in the same way...

Which was where the breathing exercises had come from in the first place. Forgetting _them._

The gate swing shut behind him with a satisfying clunk, sealing the walled garden off from the rest of the world.

"Ryuga! Ryuga!"

He turned at the familiar voice to see his brother running towards him from the house, his white hair with that familiar streak of red flying behind him. Skidding to a halt and tripping, young Ryuto had to grab Ryuga's arm to prevent himself from falling. Ryuga sighed. "Ryuto, what now?"

"Mum says you've got to come, quick! Your tutor's gonna get real mad if you leave him waiting like you did last week. You won't learn _anything_ if you don't... er, learn."

Ryuga raised one eyebrow at the younger boy. "Says the boy who doesn't even _have _proper lessons yet."

"I do so!" Ryuto snapped. "I'm learning loads of things about the Ancient Egyptians and the Pyramids and the hi... hi... hieroglyphs." He looked very proud of himself for remembering the long name. "Mum says that I'll start on some harder stuff soon, things like long multiplication. I bet _you_ don't do things like that."

"Of course not," Ryuga scoffed. "I haven't needed lessons on that since I turned eleven."

Ryuto bristled. "Well, I'm going to learn it all before I'm _ten._ You'll see." He tugged at Ryuga's hand. "Come _on!_ Or Mister Tutor Man will be mad!"

Sighing, Ryuga allowed himself to be pulled along by the eight-year-old. The arguments he had with Ryuto happened often but never seemed to last long, because the boy was ridiculously good-natured and forgiving, often forgetting what an argument had been about before they got past the first sharp exchange. A part of him wished that the arguments he had with the rest of his family could be as short – or as noisy.

If a stranger had been walking up the path beside Ryuga that early spring morning, perhaps they might have stopped at the turn of the drive, staring in unabashed amazement at the sheer size of the house in front of them. In fact, _house_ wasn't much of a description. _Castle _might have worked, if the word hadn't been so heavy, giving off the sense of dark windows in cold towers, watching over the estate with unsleeping eyes. The house was tall, but not foreboding, and there weren't any towers to speak of. Three floors high and clad in white stone, it shone under moonlight or sunlight, windows flashing like jewels. Some visitors, come from over the seas to form business deals with Ryuga's father, called it a stately home, which was about right.

It was certainly stately. The house itself was at the end of a long uphill drive, lined with young trees, but it was visible from the main gates, overlooking the whole park in the way that the mountains overlook the rest of the earth. Ryuga liked to compare it to a mountain in other ways; it was cold, often dangerous, and you couldn't get to the top bits without some help. In fact, he was banned from trying to get on the roof (his old relaxing place and _far_ more private than the little garden) ever since that incident with Ryuto, the mop, and the staircase behind the hidden door at the back of the third pantry, which really hadn't been Ryuga's fault.

Speaking of Ryuto, the boy had stopped tugging so hard at Ryuga's hand and was now concentrating on jumping up the stone steps leading up to the front doors two at a time. Ryuga, hiding a grin, bounded up them three at a time just to annoy him. He was still looking back at his younger brother when he flung open the main doors and all his good mood that had been building since Ryuto had first grabbed him evaporated instantly.

His tutor was standing in the long, marble-tiled hallway, arms crossed and one foot tapping. "Master Ryuga, you're late again. That's the fourth time this week. If you don't focus on your lessons then you will never learn..." He trailed off as Ryuga, bad mood firmly restored, stormed past him into the downstairs study that was his classroom, completely ignoring him. He had never liked the blonde-haired, blue-suited man who was meant to be teaching him everything he knew. He would much rather be outside, even if it meant he had to put up with Ryuto all the time. It wasn't as if the lessons were interesting; and of course, they meant he had to interact with someone else, which definitely came near the bottom of the list of things Ryuga liked doing. Ryuga had never been good at interacting with the household servants. After all, they were _servants,_ weren't they? He was the master.

The study was as messy as he had left it yesterday, despite his mother's warning that he had to clear it up or have his 'little spinning top' confiscated. That was another reason why Ryuga hated his lessons. He was smart enough to get the complex ideas that his tutor presented him with after only one example, yet for some reason he had to sit there for five hours every day whilst the teacher went through the same problem over and over again, stealing away the day and the light until there was no time to go and practice blading in the garden.

"So, Ryuga, where would you like to start today?"

It was a rhetorical question, and so Ryuga let his attention drift even earlier than usual, away from this stuffy room with its dark walls and darker furniture, and out into the sunlight.

It wasn't fair that Ryuto got to run around in the sun whilst he had to be stuck in here doing lessons. Yeah, his little brother had _some_ lessons to do, but it wasn't as if they were hardor anything. Ryuga could do them with his eyes shut. In fact, that was exactly how he _had_ done them when he'd been Ryuto's age. It had annoyed his tutor no end, but that wasn't his fault, was it? If the man couldn't be of any real use to Ryuga, then he was only worth being ignored. Lessons were boring.

"...and you can use the Newtonian law to describe..."

He didn't care about whatever law it was by some old, dusty science guy his tutor had decided to drag out today. It was always the same, day in and day out. Dull, monotonous – he'd once spent a whole hour thinking up synonyms for _boring_, which ironically enough had been the most entertaining lesson to date. Ryuga hated having to do the same dull things every dull day.

Did Ryuko get bored, holed up in the office with Father all day? No, Ryuga decided. There was no way that his other brother, three years, seven months and four days his elder and _far _too proud of it, could possibly hate that office. He was in there all the time, barely coming out even for meal times. As the heir to the family business (and fortune) Ryuko was being taught everything he needed to know by his father, and had been for at least as long as Ryuto had been alive. Ryuga could just recall, at the very fringes of his memory, a day when he was trying to run after his then-five-year-old older brother and got lost in the fields at the back of their house, but that was the last time that he could remember actually playing with Ryuko. It had only been a few weeks later that their mother had become ill before having Ryuto, and the world had been upside down and inside out ever since.

"Ryuga, are you paying attention?"

No, he wasn't. Was that not obvious enough? This was the second day they had spent on Newton and his theories, and Ryuga never wanted to see another apple again. But he had to pretend that he was behaving or he might have his blade confiscated. That would be a thousand times worse than being stuck in here all day.

"Well, if you're going to be like that, Master Ryuga, I would like you to turn to the next page in your text book and work through all the examples for me. I'll give you half an hour."

Ryuga rolled his eyes and looked down at the open book on the desk in front of him, skimming over the questions. He could do all of these in five minutes, no problem. Then he could go back to working out yet another strategy to get his blade to spin for longer.

His thoughts were already drifting as he put pen to paper and began scribbling the answers down, deliberately making it messy so that his tutor would have a hard job making out the answer. He had owned his first proper blade, a green Stamina-type bey by the name of Storm Cygnus, for about a year now, but frankly that hadn't made much of a difference. There was something inherently wrong with his launch that meant his blade always sputtered to a halt mere moments after he sent it flying from the launcher. Battling was impossible – he would always lose. He could only keep his blade spinning for a maximum of thirty seconds, and he figured that had been mostly the wind. Even Ryuto was better than him.

"Ten more minutes, Ryuga."

"Hmph."

"Excuse me? What was that?"

"Nothing."

His brother wasn't powerful, but at least he could get the blade to run in a straight line for a minute or two before it spun out. It wasn't fair. Nevertheless, Ryuga was determined. He was going to work out how to master his bey, and then he would become the champion. There was nothing he couldn't do as long as he set his mind to it – like these Physics problems.

"Let's see your work then, Master Ryuga. Oh dear, could you really not be any neater than this?"

Ryuga glared at the man who was the cause of all this. If he didn't have to spend so long in school every day, he was sure he could have mastered Cygnus by now. But whether it took him a year, two years, ten years, however long, he was going to become the best. That was the rule of his family – become the best, _be_ the best.

For now, though, it looked like he was going to have to put up with Mr Newton and his infernal apples.

* * *

_A/N: there is no canonical evidence for Ryuga being of noble birth - except for a couple of hints which if I pointed them out here would ruin the rest of the story – nor is there any evidence of him having more than one sibling (or parents) so I guess you could call this AU if you want. Otherwise, this is based on canon as closely as I possibly can, in the hope of giving Ryuga the back-story he so richly deserves._

_And yes, I've put him in what is, effectively, an English stately home. They're really quite beautiful if you like that sort of thing._


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Irritation was not an emotion the prisoner was used to. It made him uncomfortable and restless, and in a cell barely big enough to hold him, that was not helpful in the least.

He had been trying for months now to reach someone who could help. But none of them had been suitable – too weak, too young, too naïve, all of them. It was as if the universe had conspired against him.

And then – _finally – _he found someone. Someone who burned bright with ambition and greed, and wanted the support that he could offer.

He'd do quite nicely.

_Come to me. Help me get out. I'll make it worth your while. Come to me._

The man had slowly packed his bags, all the while muttering something about _jewels under the mountains, _wandering dazedly out of his house to follow the voice he could hear in his head.

The prisoner stretched in his cold cell, brushing against the icy walls, testing them. No. He couldn't touch them yet or he would burn. He would have to wait until his helper arrived to break him out.

He could hardly wait, but he settled down, curling up and sending another soft-spoken message to the one who would become both his vessel and his vassal.

_Come to me. Help me, and I will give you whatever you want. Come to me._


	4. Chapter 3

_Okay, I'm not going to hide the fact that I **hated** writing this. It's one of those pesky opening chapters where not much happens but everything is really important to set up later stuff that's way more awesome..._

_It's also pretty short, which isn't fair on you because it took so long for me to actually write this. And I can't make any promises on when the next part comes out, because I've just started my last year of university and that means lots of hard work if I want to pass well._

* * *

**Chapter 3**

It was a Saturday.

Ryuga _loved_ Saturdays. It was his favourite day of the week. No school, no school the next day either, no schedule, no formal training – _nothing. _Just a day for him to be out in the sun, wind, rain or fog, blading.

(Okay, if it rained it could get pretty miserable. But sometimes he could persuade Ryuto to charm the kitchen staff into making hot chocolate, and that was always good.)

"Let it rip!"

Storm Cygnus, green as new leaves, exploded from its launcher and crashed into the opposite side of the dish, coming to a halt almost immediately. Like that made a change, Ryuga thought irritably. Why couldn't he get the hang of this? He'd been learning to blade ever since he was old enough to pick up the little tops. Apparently his mother had a picture in her room of Ryuga at eighteen months old, asleep in his cot and curled up around the first bey he'd ever owned. At that age, it would have been twice the size of his fist. It had been a child's one with soft edges and gentle plastic curves, not the powerful metal one he was allowed now. Of course, his father didn't really approve of his son being obsessed with such a childish pursuit, but his father never seemed to approve of him anyway – and besides, Ryuga loved blading. It was the one thing he actually had to work for, and he loved the challenge.

He picked up Storm Cygnus and examined it carefully. No, there was no damage to the tip or the locks that held it in the launcher, and the spin-track was fine as well. Hmph. So it was definitely not a mechanical problem. That meant it was his fault, and Ryuga didn't like things that were his fault.

He couldn't understand it. Other kids seemed to have no problem whatsoever with using these little pieces of metal and plastic to battle each other, race up and down the streets and generally run riot, so why was he struggling? He'd been fine with the childish one, but the moment that he'd grown strong enough to progress to the metal blade, he'd lost all control. It just didn't make sense.

"Ryuga! Battle me!"

Ryuga's shoulders slumped. This was just what he didn't need; Ryuto wasn't especially strong but at least he could battle normally. Every single time that his younger brother caught him practising, he would challenge him to a battle, and of course Ryuga turned him down. What was the point of battling if he couldn't even launch properly? Not that he'd ever tell Ryuto that.

"Get lost, shrimp," he sighed. "You're no match for me. You've only got one of the kiddie blades; I'd squish you in three seconds flat."

It said something for how private Ryuga managed to keep his daily practices that Ryuto still believed this lie. Then again, the kid still thought that daisies closed at night because that was where the fairies slept, so maybe not. Ryuto had always been the romantic one of the three brothers.

Ryuto pouted, apparently under the impression that because that worked on his mother and all of the maidservants it would work on his brother. "Come on, Ryuga, _please_?"

"No. Go back inside. I'm practising."

Now Ryuto genuinely did start sulking. "That's not fair. You practice so much you must be one of the best bladers in the whole world by now."

_If only,_ Ryuga thought to himself.

"All the boys in the town are rubbish and I beat them ages ago. I need someone else to battle! Hey, I know! Can I sit and watch you? Then you can teach me to be as good as you as well!"

"No!" At least to this, Ryuga had a reasonable response. "You should know better, Ryuto. Blading is something you have to get better at on your own. You have to find your own way of learning, not copy mine."

That was what he had been taught in the only blading lesson he had ever had. It hadn't even been a lesson, really, just some older boy in the square in the town showing the younger kids how to hold the launchers and pull the ripcord. Ryuga had hovered at the edge, not prepared to let the other boy know just how much he wanted to learn more about this strange world where spinning tops battled for dominance and constellations shone in chosen blades and filled the earth with the splendour of the skies.

Ryuto sidled towards him and suddenly grabbed for Storm Cygnus. Startled, Ryuga didn't manage to prevent his pest of a younger brother from seizing his precious bey and running off with it.

"RYUTO! Give that _back! _It's _mine!_"

Of course Ryuto didn't give it back. That would just have made it too easy. So Ryuga had to chase after him, taking him out of the comforting privacy of the walled garden and into the main garden. He dodged around the head gardener, who shook his head at the antics of the two younger sons of the lord. Ryuga ignored him; he'd never been very popular with the household servants, not with hard-working Ryuko and adorable Ryuto there. At least the gardener still let him use the walled garden whenever he liked.

By the time that Ryuga caught up with Ryuto, the younger white-haired boy had managed to shin his way up one of the trees at the edge of the grounds and was perched high above Ryuga's head, feet dangling over the side of the massive bough he was sitting on.

"Ryuto..." Ryuga made his voice as threatening as possible without outright terrifying his brother (it wasn't like he wanted him to fall out of the tree in shock or something), who was turning the green blade over and over in his hands, scrutinising it. "Give that back, Ryuto, it's not yours."

"I just wanted to _look_ at it," Ryuto complained. "And... hey, Ryuga - there's no scratches on this at all! Do you _ever_ battle anyone?"

Ryuga scoffed to hide his true thoughts. "Only those who might be a challenge."

"So... no-one?" Ryuto asked, eyes wide in something that Ryuga couldn't decide whether it was admiration or disbelief. He poked the face-bolt, making a shiver run involuntarily down Ryuga's spine. "It's not fair. Mum won't let me have one of the big blades like you. She says I have to wait until I'm ten, but the butler said that you got yours when you were eight like me."

Ryuga laughed. "Perhaps you need to grow up a bit first, shrimp. You have to be a big boy to get one of these."

"Yeah, but you could tell Mum that I'm big enough..."

With a running jump, Ryuga swung up into the tree next to his younger brother and held out his hand for his blade. "You're not big enough for one like this. And anyway, Mother is far more likely to listen to you than me."

It was true. It wasn't that Ryuga's mother didn't listen to her middle son, but she was very protective of her youngest. Ryuto had almost died when his was born, and so he took priority in everything that she did. It didn't help that when she had fallen ill shortly afterwards, Ryuto had been the only one allowed in to see her other than the nurse. Back then, Ryuga could understand it. Ryuto had been tiny, he'd needed his mother, there was nothing more complicated to it.

But after eight years, Ryuto was still the little boy who spent all his spare time outside of schooling with his mother. They played games together, danced around Mother's rooms together (okay, it wasn't _really_ dancing... more like crazy jumping around to the beat), did everything together. Without Ryuga.

Not that Ryuga was bitter about that or anything.

Ryuto sighed and thrust Storm Cygnus back towards its true owner. "I bet Dad would let me have one."

"No he wouldn't," Ryuga told him. "You know what Father's like about all this. He thinks it's childish."

Ryuto tilted his whole body back until he was leaning far over the edge of the branch. "But I bet the professionals make loads of money. Dad'd like that."

Ryuga had no answer to that, so he jumped down from the tree. "Go back inside, Ryuto. I'm in the middle of training and I wouldn't want you to get hurt." He grinned. "The power in one of these things is _far_ too much for someone as little as you."

"Ry-_u-_ga!" Ryuto whined, leaping down and racing after Ryuga as he took off across the garden again, hoping that with his longer legs he could make it to the walled garden quickly enough to bolt the gate behind him before his younger pest could get through.

Unfortunately for Ryuga, Ryuto was equally determined not to get caught out, and managed to slip through the gate just as Ryuga threw his weight against it to shut it.

"Hah!"

Ryuga closed his eyes and sighed. Why did he have to get saddled with the most irritating younger brother in history?

"Come on, Ryuga, just one launch? I want to see how much faster Cygnus is than mine!"

Except that Ryuto _did_ have this uncanny ability to find exactly the right angle to persuade just about anyone to do what he wanted. Maybe that was why the servants all adored Ryuto and would do anything for him? Beside the fact that he was Mother's favourite, of course.

"Fine. Just one. Then you go."

"Yay!"

Reluctantly, Ryuga pulled his launcher out of his pocket, breathing a silent prayer that perhaps this time, Cygnus would at least stay spinning for a couple of seconds. The flicker of green calmed him a little. At worst, he would fluff the launch and then he would just claim that Ryuto was distracting him in order to make the little brat go away before he could get Ryuga to do anything else.

"Go Cygnus!"

To Ryuga's relief, the blade shot out of the launcher at full speed and landed perfectly, right in the middle of the dish. An almost irrational hope sparked in Ryuga's stomach as the blade held its position for one second, two seconds, three...

"Ryuga! Will you please be quiet?"

The voice came from the second floor of the house, from a window that had just been flung open with a bang. Ryuga took his attention away from his blade and instantly Cygnus ground to a halt, tumbling over in the bottom of the dish.

"Ryuko! Now look what you've gone and done!"

"Ryuga, if you're going to continue wasting time with those little spinning-tops, then I must ask you to keep the noise down!"

Ryuga's indignation spiked. That wasn't fair. He had _just_ managed to get Cygnus to spin properly and the brother who normally refused to speak to him had yelled at him and broken his concentration! "Nobody asked you to listen, Ryuko!" he snapped.

"I don't want to! That's why I'm asking you _very nicely_ to shut up, or I'll get Dad to take that stupid thing away from you!"

"It's not stupid!" Ryuga roared back, but Ryuko had already slammed the window shut with shattering force and gone back to the office with Father. No doubt he was already complaining about how his younger brother was causing chaos down in the gardens and that he, Ryuga, should have his privileges stopped for a week or two because didn't he understand that Ryuko was doing Important Family Work that couldn't be disturbed for anything, least of all something as trivial as a younger brother who Just Messed Around Outside And Wasted Everybody's Time.

For a long moment, heat bubbled viciously in the pit of Ryuga's stomach. _No!_ This wasn't what was meant to happen! He was meant to be in control at all times; he was meant to be as serene and calm as a mountain lake. He screwed his eyes tight shut. Anger and rage had no place in his world.

"Ryuga?" Oh. So Ryuto hadn't gone as soon as Ryuko had shown up. How odd. That was what he usually did – ran to Mother so that Father couldn't blame him for anything later. "Hey, Ryuga? You alright?"

He ignored his brother, keeping his eyes closed as he concentrated. He couldn't lose control. He was his father's son, and that meant that he had to be calm and controlled at all times, just like Ryuko. No-one wanted a young master with a temper.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Push it back. Push it down. _Forget._

He wanted to hate them – the brother who stole his father, the brother who stole his mother, the servants whose words were never quite quiet enough for him to miss as they gossiped in the kitchen and the hallways. He wanted to scream it at them, spit the building venom in his heart at them. But he couldn't allow himself that luxury. He was his father's son. He had a responsibility to be the best, and that meant he had to behave. He had to control his thoughts, and forget that this was just the tip of the iceberg, forget everything that had ever been insinuated about him, for today's enemy might be tomorrow's business partner for his father.

Ryuga would not let that happen. He was his father's son, and one of the heirs to his father's business even if Ryuko was the primary heir. He refused to do anything that might damage his father's reputation in the business world. He couldn't do anything else. That was the way it was, and the way it always had been, and the way it always would be.

It was Ryuga's role. Keeping everything just as it was – not letting anything change. Ryuko would deal with the old customers. Ryuto's charm would bring in the new ones. And Ryuga would be locked in the middle, maintaining a perfect balance on a scale that wasn't even stable. That was the way it was, and the way it always had been, and the way it always would be.

Nothing would ever change.

It was a Saturday.

Ryuga loved Saturdays.

_._

* * *

_For those who are worried, there is a very good reason why Ryuga is bad at blading right now. It'll be explained in about twelve chapters' time..._


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Days and then weeks passed whilst his helper made the journey all across south Japan, and finally he was close enough for the prisoner to reach a little deeper, give him a hint of what he was going to be rewarded with later. It was nothing after all that the poor man had gone through to get there. Just a touch of the power that he could expect, that he would be flooded with later at the moment when he broke the prison...

There had been a rapid rush of heartbeats, a panicked shriek, and then the man's life had leached from his body.

_Great..._

He'd been wrong. The man had been weak-willed, unsuitable to help him. All that he had been useful for in the end was providing a tiny burst of energy in the form of all-consuming fear that allowed the one still in his crystal cage to reach a little further than before.

It annoyed him that he had been such a poor judge of character, but the greed and ambition had certainly seemed strong enough. Maybe greed alone wasn't enough to drag someone all the way to his prison.

He would have to start again. He'd be a lot more careful this time.


End file.
